A nationalist view of the EU

The word nationalist is often thrown about when a europhile argues against those who oppose political union in europe. In fact, when the french, dutch and irish had referendums and all rejected the lisbon treaty, some MEP’s called the results nationalist, as to mean being nationalist is something bad!

A nationalist is someone who believes in democracy, who believes in one-man-one-vote and believes that government should be carried out by and for the people. However, he also raises the question: what people?

Representative government works best within a population whose members feel enough in common with one another to accept government from each other’s hands. After all, a policy functions best when there is a shared identity.

The unelected president of the European Commission, Jose Barroso, has argued that nation states are dangerous precisely because they are excessively democratic:

Governments are not always right. If governments were always right we would not have the situation that we have today. Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

The EU now treats public opinion as an obsticle to be overcome rather than a reason to change direction.

Marxists used to contend that, if only the workers were in full possession of the facts, and free rationally to advance their own interests, they would vote for socialist parties, but in practice they were led astray by bourgeois interests. It was therefore necessary for good communists to act in the real interests of the majority.

This is the same argument the eurocrats support. Because they think people are unable to make an unclouded decision, eurocrats are entitled to disregard their desires in pursuit of their own preferences.

Even Tony Blair thought this:

The British people are sensible enough to know that, even if they have a certain prejudice about Europe, they don’t expect their government necessarily to share or act upon it.

And finally, the EU has so much power, that to save the dwindling euro currency in 2011, it effectively halted democracy in italy and greece ‘for their own good’ through brussels appointed apparatchiks.

A nationalist, is someone who wants what is best for his country, through democracy. Not someone who thinks they know what is right for everyone.

The fact is, if the EU were a country applying to join itself, it would be rejected on the grounds of being insufficiently democratic by its own rules.